


After School Special

by AoifeAnAmadan



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, M/M, Minecraft, a coward!, dreamnotfound, im just a bit obsessed with minecraft at the minuete, no beta but i used grammerly because i am what?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:07:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28366635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AoifeAnAmadan/pseuds/AoifeAnAmadan
Summary: Montague versus Capulet, Taylor versus Katy, Dream versus George.It was one of those fueds, the kind you barely even had to acknowledge. The sky is blue, we breathe air, Dream hated George.Needless to say, neither of them were over the moon when they found out they had to spend two months working together in weekend detention.
Relationships: Clay | Dream & GeorgeNotFound & Sapnap (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream & Sapnap (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound, GeorgeNotFound & Sapnap (Video Blogging RPF)
Comments: 67
Kudos: 190





	1. Spanish?

**Author's Note:**

> Any CC's that want it taken down please contact me :) obviously all fiction

Dream was an early riser, he always had been. It was nice to wake up to quiet suburbia, to see the world jostle into life. He witnessed the cellophane peace stretch and tear. The house was quiet before sunrise, it felt delicate, holy. It felt like it was all his. Dream could wander, tiptoe around the soft quiet. It was like he was the only person left on the planet.

Lie-ins felt wrong on a cellular level. They made him feel a dirty kind of guilt, the missed opportunity. Every day since he was a child, he was up before the sun. And every day he watched the sunrise while eating breakfast. It was gorgeous. Watching the sweet pinks and dusted oranges floating up from the horizon assured him he was there, he was human. 

It felt right, millions of years of evolution proving him right. Once the sun was up, the house got moving. 

He loved the mornings, seeing his family bleary-eyed and cotton-mouthed. It was a different kind of vulnerability, one coated in familiarity. It made him certain that they were all there. Real and familiar and the same as always. 

On the first morning of his senior year, Dream missed the sunrise. I was nothing ominous or scary, he just overslept. His alarm clock’s batteries had run out the night before and Dream couldn’t wake up without the siren blare. His sister had to knock on his hardwood door as she passed on her way downstairs.

Dream wasn’t superstitious. Witches didn’t scare him, he thought spells were bullshit. But missing the sunrise on the first morning of his last year of school, it scared him a little bit. He didn’t realise it at the time, head stuffed with _shitfuckshitshit I’m going to be late_ , that end of the world feeling that comes with waking up late on a Monday. But the thing that scared him was the uncertainty, the proof that things were changing soon.

Normally, once the house was moving enough, he could take a shower without feeling guilty for shattering the peace of the sunrise. It was always the same, hair first then his body, his teeth. 

No matter how many times he washed and changed his bedsheets, the night always made him feel dirty. Seeing the water go down the drain felt like seeing the air rushing into his lungs, his blood pumping. It was certain, it worked. Always the same soap, the same shampoo.

That morning, he had to run to the shower. Dream liked routine, a plan, but he liked efficiency more. Even his shower routine was streamlined to be as time-effective as possible. He’d had the same shower gel since he was 11, fresh and clear.

It was just his luck that his Bubble Cucumber & Aloe Vera Hair & Body Wash would run out the first morning in 7 years that he was running late.

But, he adapted. The family soap felt gritty against his skin. It felt like there was a snail leaving a trail of lime behind it. Dream felt dirty, the night was ground into his skin. But, _‘a positive attitude was his most important accessory’_ according to his mother, so he got on with it. He showered, he got dressed and he rushed his way downstairs.

His socks thudded softly against the carpeted stairs as he jogged into the kitchen, wearing shoes in the morning wasn’t right in his brain. He was pulling his jumper on over his head as he walked in, really it was inevitable that he’d walk into the door frame. There was a red mark on his forehead under his hairline. Fuck. His sister’s laughter only added to the heat building in the back of his brain.

Dream was a creature of habit, he knew what worked. And why fix what’s not broken? Two slices of white bread toast (with the dial at setting 2) with blackcurrant jam, butter on both sides and no crusts. A glass of orange juice without bits. It was an easy breakfast, it worked. He never felt hungry before lunch.

The bits in orange juice were gross, the way they congealed on the side of the glass. Just the sight of gravity dragging them down the inside of the glass, leaving a trail of orange guts and gore, it was enough to make him squirm.

So, naturally, when Dream reached to pour the orange juice that morning, he was met with a stream of obnoxiously bit filled orange juice. Dream took his deep breaths, but the rise and fall of his chest made his skin rub against his t-shirt. The feeling of the shirt sticking to his wet, slimy skin was the final straw. He punched his hand twice, squeezed his eyes shut and stood up.

In hindsight, taking the carton and pouring it down the sink was an overreaction. But at the time, despite the protests from his sisters, it seemed like the only option. There would have been no issue other than a new shortage of orange juice, but Murphy’s Law was at play. 

Just as Dream was going to throw the emptied carton in the bin, his mother walked in. 

“Oh Clay, for God’s sake. I had just bought that!”

Dream got into Sapnap’s car five minutes late with toast in his mouth, ‘thoroughly sorry for wasting perfectly good orange juice’ but more sorry for being seen throwing it away.

“What took so long dude?” Sapnap was smiling from the driver’s seat. The second Dream got in, he put his head on the dashboard. Sapnap only got an exaggerated groan as a response. Dream didn't lift his head.

“Okay!” Sapnap, still grinning, started them on the journey towards school. His predictions about how their senior year would go were a welcome distraction from Dream’s building stress headache.

It was easy, it always was. Dream and Sapnap, Sapnap and Dream. They knew each other better than they knew themselves. Dream didn’t need to pretend to be excited or upbeat. He just had to be there. And he was. And so was Sapnap. And that morning, that was enough for both of them. To know they had each other, each in the other’s corner.

Sapnap talked the whole journey and Dream loved him for it. They understood each other, knew what the other needed. That morning, Dream needed a distraction while Sapnap needed to get the nerves of a first day back at school out of his system.

By the time they were parked, they were running behind. 

Dream was late to his first class, physics. He got into school just as first the bell rang but the receptionist wouldn’t let him past. He tried to protest but was only met with a lecture about time management. They didn’t want to hear about his excuse, his mother’s lecture about food waste. 

“Well, how could I ‘manage my time’ if my mother was the one keeping me back? What am I meant to say to my mother? I’m not about to tell my mom to shut up.” Dream was almost pleading by that point. His day had gone from bad to worse, to worse, to worse.

“I’d be careful before taking that tone with a _staff member_ if I were you, Dream.” Dream wanted to hit back, stand up for himself, but he swallowed his words. The receptionist didn’t care what he had to say, they were just happy to get him in trouble. Drunk on power and projecting their highschool experience onto Dream. This wasn’t worth the trouble it would cause.

Dream just nodded, bit back his ‘Fuck you’, apologised and headed to the other office for a late note, appeased only with a muttered whisper of ‘total bullshit’ as he walked away.

Such was the tyranny of high school.

When he finally got into the class, equipped with his note, the teacher barely paid him any attention. He didn’t even want the note. He just told him to sit down in any empty seat, then he went back to his diagram of magnetic fields.

Dream surveyed the classroom and was met with a packed grid of chairs. He could see his friends, all the way at the back of the class. It felt like light-years away. They were all frowning at him in sympathy. Dream didn’t like it at all, he didn’t want anyone’s sympathy. Bad was the only one who wasn’t looking at him like he just told them his puppy died. He was tapping his watch and mouthing ‘Don’t be late’. Dream smiled back sadly and shook his head. 

The only empty seat was in the front row next to Weird Sarah. Dream bit the inside of his mouth to keep from getting mad, and sat down next to her.

He turned to her, hoping to make some kind of friendship using the ‘positive attitude’ that his mother so valued, but was only met with the sight of her picking her nose at age 18. She turned to him and glared.

Dream thought that might be the final straw, after everything that had gone wrong. His head felt like a tea kettle, he was surprised other people couldn’t see steam coming out of his ears. 

But, he counted his deep breaths and clenched his fists until he could refocus on electromagnetism, or whatever the teacher was talking about.

Dream had been so focused on not letting everything from the morning get to him then and there, and culminate into a public rage, he had forgotten to pay attention. He was completely lost. 

The teacher must’ve noticed the look on Dream’s face, because it was then he chose to engage Dream in the lesson.

“Dream, can you tell me how to label exhibit 6.3?” 

The words felt like a death sentence. Dream just stared blankly back at him, turning red. Everyone was quiet, all witnesses to Dream’s public execution by way of embarrassment. He wanted to yell, to tell them all he wasn’t stupid he was just panicking. Instead, he sat there in the silence. Any other day he would have had some cocky, charismatic answer but that Monday he had nothing.

He could feel his classmates’ eyes burning into the back of his head, looking at him expectantly. Dream couldn’t have remembered the answer right then if he had a masters degree in electromagnetism. The silence was starting to become painful. He had to say something.

“No?” It came out as more of a question than an answer. The teacher looked at Dream, disappointed. It was too early for this.

“No Dream, you cannot, because you were too focused on staring at your blank notebook. Pay attention please.” 

The teacher, Mr McCarthy, was a nice man. He was old - maybe fifty or sixty - with grey hair and frail shoulders. He had three grandchildren and two kids of his own. His youngest grandchild, Lucy, was the apple of his eye. He liked golf, reading and the Netflix programme ‘Too Hot to Handle’. He was a good teacher. 

None of that mattered to Dream, who at that moment felt like his teacher might have actually been the devil.

The embarrassment was burning in his chest, in his hands. And he hated it. He didn’t get embarrassed. _Dream_ did not get embarrassed. He got mad and angry and mean, but not embarrassed. So, he flicked the switch. The blood that was flowing to his cheeks changed course to his ears.

He felt it building up inside him again, the same anger from earlier was rushing back in to suffocate the embarrassment. This whole class was fucking bull, what did Mr McCarthy even know about jackshit? 

Dream didn’t even hear him open the question up to the rest of the class. He only heard George’s response.

“It’s particle radiation.”

George said it easily, nearly muttering. He didn’t even have to think about it. The class went silent. Dream heard Bad mutter an “Oh no.”

One thing everyone knew about Dream was that he did not like to lose. Ever since he was a kid, everything was a competition. Who could brush their teeth fastest? Who could finish the storybook first? He once stayed up for 27 hours just to make sure he was better than Sapnap at Call Of Duty. He was competitive to the core. It’s easy to be like that when you’re used to winning. Every time he was the best at something, it fueled him to be the best at something else. It was an easy cycle, the blueprint never failed him.

Dream _didn’t_ lose, but somehow George always found a way to put him in second place. Ever since they were kids. When they were doing races, George was faster. When they were doing rock, paper, scissors George was luckier. When they were doing spelling bees, George was smarter. 

Dream still didn’t lose, how could he, but he also didn’t win. And that wasn’t acceptable.

George knowing the answer to Mr McCarthy’s question was his final straw that morning.

“Yeah, of course _he_ would need to answer.” It was a mutter to Sarah, under his breath. Sarah didn’t even glance towards him. But, in the silence of the classroom, it was 1000 decibels. Everyone froze, thankful to have front seats to their own personal soap opera.

“What’d you just say?” George’s head snapped towards Dream, all aggression and thought out anger. He was giving Dream a chance to retreat. Everyone knew he wasn’t going to take it. Dream wasn’t the type to retreat.

“I said of course you would need to prove how smart you are to the whole class.” Dream was looking back at him, matching his anger. Nobody was talking.

“Boys,” Mr McCarthy, bless his soul, tried to intervene. It was a lost cause. No one even noticed him.

  
  
“Just because you’re mad that you didn’t know the answer. Stop acting like a little bitch.” George was talking as if he was speaking to a younger brother, scowling at Dream. He sounded like he barely cared about what was happening. It looked like he would be cold to the touch, like a statue. It made it look like Dream was throwing a tantrum.

“George!” Mr McCarthy had never heard George swear before. Dream had. Everyone in the class had. George had been swearing like a sailor since he was eight.

“I’m a bitch? Coming from you? You fucking weirdo-” Dream’s anger was only building. Seeing George look cool and collected while he felt his face heating up made it worse. He stood up, the clatter of the stool bouncing off the walls.

“Boys!” That was the final straw for Mr McCarthy. He slammed his book down on the desk as he yelled. No one moved. Dream was left standing, breathing heavily. It was like they’d been snapped back to reality, remembering that there was actually a teacher in the room. Even if it was only Mr McCarthy. 

He pointed his bony finger at Dream and then at George.

“You two. Outside. Now.”

In life, there were some simple truths. The sky was blue, the sun was hot. And, Dream and George hated each other.

But, in the same was the sky had been red in the beginning and the sun would be nothing in the end, it hadn’t always been that way.

When they were younger, much younger, everything had been different. When they were kids, five years old, maybe six, Dream, George and Sapnap had been real friends, or as real a friendship could be at age nine. Sapnap had been the glue holding them all together. He was a mediator, no matter how hard he tried to start the joking fights he was always the one to end the serious ones.

Sometimes Dream thought that without Sapnap, he and George wouldn’t have made it past the age of 10 without killing each other. They were always fighting, over catch, snap, tip the can, even tic tac toe.

Things changed as they got older though. Where Dream and Sapnap got more confident, bigger, taller, stronger, George went quiet. He wasn’t shy, he just seemed mad. He was all snark and edge and frost. He retreated into himself totally, Dream never had any idea what he was thinking. By the age of ten, Dream was sure George hated him, so he decided to hate George back even harder.

The more time that passed, the more he believed his story. That George had shut him out, and Dream was only acting in self-defence. 

After all, George was weird. Where Dream was loud, the life of every party, the centre of the school community, George was quiet and pretentious. It was like he thought he was better than everyone else because he didn’t engage with the school.

Everyone wanted to be Dream’s friends, everyone except George. 

Bad came into the picture in high school, all kindness and unconditional friendship. He was just what Dream and Sapnap had needed, he kept them human. Bad stopped him from being a bully. Sapnap had always said to be nice because it was the right thing to do. Bad said to be nice because empathy was a virtue, he explained his experience growing up, how just one person being nice to him could’ve changed everything. He made Sapnap and Dream kinder.

Where Dream hated George, all sarcasm and snark, George seemed to have a vague dislike of Dream. It was as if he didn’t even care enough to dislike him. Even if Dream didn’t want to admit it, on some level he knew that he hated George more than George hated him. This only spurred him on to hate George even more.

Sapnap tried to stop him. Him and George were still good friends. He didn’t let them talk about each other and never told them anything about the other. That was Sapnap to a T, as loyal as they come. No matter how many times he started fake fights, Dream knew he’d always be there if he really needed him.

But, standing out in the hall in the middle of what should've been a normal physics class, Sapnap was not there. Mr McCarthy and George, however, were right in front of him, and they were on route to the principal’s office.

A solid telling off later, his third of the day, George and Dream had received their punishment. For swearing and publically fighting during physics, they were sentenced to two months worth of weekend classes together.

It was that or four months of after school detention. Dream didn’t want to admit it, but he had George to thank for negotiating it down to what it was. Dream would never tell a soul, but it was a tiny bit badass to see George debating the principal while she was mid-rant.

Dream was a lot more grateful than he was letting off.

If he wanted to stay on as the first striker on the soccer team, he needed to be at every practice. And practices were after school, exactly when their detention was first scheduled. He couldn’t have Sapnap out on the soccer field without him to pass to, how would he cope with the loneliness?

George had after school commitments as well apparently, considering how hard he fought to get the mandatory attendance to the weekend classes the school ran instead. He argued that him and Dream could improve their schooling and learn to co-exist, instead of sitting in silence and letting their hatred simmer.

They were even allowed to pick the class, as a way to start them on their journey of cooperation. 

Once they left the office, miraculously still alive, Dream turned to George. He tried to push down the automatic response of ‘Fuck this guy’ in order to choose the class they would take. Before he could even open his mouth, George was talking.

“We’re doing English.” Before Dream could reply, he was walking away. Asshole.

Dream chased after him down the hall.

“Hey, hey!” George didn’t even turn around until Dream was tapping his shoulder. _Asshole._

“Huh?” George had the audacity to look confused. “What do you want now?” 

Dream just looked at him in disbelief, shaking his head. He was so fucking obnoxious.

“Why would we do English? I wanted to do-” Dream hesitated. He hadn’t actually thought about what he wanted to do, too distracted by what an idiot George was for speaking for the both of them without consulting him. Dream realised his pause for too long. “-Spanish.”

Dream did not want to do Spanish.

“Spanish?” George was looking at him like he was an idiot. It made Dream want to double down even harder.

“Yeah. Spanish.” It didn’t even sound convincing to his own ears.

“You don’t do Spanish.” George was getting annoyed. Dream was proving everything that he thought about him right. 

“I do!” Dream didn’t know why he was committing so hard to his lie. He didn’t want George to know he was right, God knows how smug it would make him.

“Speak some Spanish right now then.” George was challenging him. It caught Dream off guard. He hadn’t expected the exchange to go further than him saying he wanted to do Spanish, which he did not.

He would’ve spoken some, but never having learned a word of Spanish made that a bit difficult. He hesitated too long for it to be believable.

“No.” Dream’s brain was stuttering. He was trapped in his own lie. This was exactly what his mother always said would happen if you lied, you’d get trapped in it.

  
  
“No?” George looked at him, smirking like an idiot. Asshole. Of course he would like watching Dream in misery, Sapnap was wrong about him. 

“No.” They both stood there in the hall, Dream prayed for the bell to ring and give him an excuse to leave. The bell did not ring.

“Okay then. We’re doing English. For one, we both actually do it. And you need the help.” Before Dream could protest, George walked away. Dream wanted to punch him.

His mother didn’t take the news well. Most parents wouldn’t be over the moon hearing that their child was going to be in weekend detention for two months. Dream tried to spin it as a fun afternoon class but that plan was derailed when his dad came in holding the phone, with the principal on the other end of the line. 

In school the next day, after spending twenty minutes complaining to his friends, Dream found George during lunch.

“Hey, I’m going to need your number.” Dream didn’t bother with manners. They were well past that point. He was just following the orders of his mother, who wanted them to co-operate completely. She figured Dream would need George’s number.

George looked up from his friends, eyebrows raised. When he saw Dream, he got up. They walked just a few steps away from the table.

“George, your number?” Dream just wanted to get it over with so he could go back to his friends and complain about the whole situation

“Oh yeah, it’s 08 fuck you 69.” George rolled his eyes, taking the phone from Dream’s hand. 

He saved his contact under Gogy <3 and walked away. Dream was left scowling at George’s back.


	2. Montague versus Capulet

Change is hard. It’s a universal truth. But for Dream, change was foreign. It just didn’t happen. He did the same thing every day. Get up, sunrise, shower, breakfast, get in Sapnap’s truck. The days were all the same, they pushed into each other. 

It was as if his life was made up of concrete blocks, one for every day. He was stacking them, and the more weight he added, the less space between the blocks. They were pressed so closely together, the weight of a lifetime keeping them tight, there was no room for opportunities to worm themselves in.

That wasn’t to say it was bad. He liked his life. It was fine. He had friends, hobbies, he did great in school. He was captain of the state champion soccer team. Girls liked him. It was all perfectly fine. 

His new weekend arrangements threw a spanner into his routine. Instead of watching Netflix from his couch in his pyjamas, he was sitting at the breakfast table across from his dad. His father’s attempted conversation was a sorry replacement for Netflix’s D-List cartoons.

His dad was him lecturing about something, but it was as if Dream had cotton in his ears. His father’s throwaway words about consequence and responsibility were muted. He was saying something about the image Dream had to project as soccer captain when a ding came from Dream’s phone. It was Sapnap.

**Sapnap**

**(9:37 am)** hey im outside lets go

Once Dream read the text he was on his feet, toast in his mouth and jacket in his hand, rushing muffled goodbyes to his father. He heard the vague well wishes as he left.

Sapnap was a good friend, but one of his best traits was knowing when to be the enemy. The second Dream got in the car, he was complaining. About his dad, George, these stupid weekend classes. His lamenting was cut short. Before he could fully develop any of his woes, Sapnap was interrupting. 

“Dream shut _up,”_ he whined. It caught Dream off guard, stopping him in the middle of his first anti-George rant of the day. He looked at Sapnap, wounded. Sapnap just rolled his eyes. Dream gave up on the hurt puppy charade. He had only been on the first part of the speech, George’s entitlement. He didn’t even get to parts two, three or four (George’s pretentiousness, George’s fakeness and George’s sense of superiority, respectively). Each part was ten minutes long.

“Dude?” He didn’t like the distant hurt that he could hear in his voice. Sapnap softened. 

“Sorry, it’s just like, this is _your_ fault Dream.” This was not how Dream had expected the drive to hell to go. “You started the fight, and it’s not like George wants to do this either.” He knew Sapnap might have been right, but Dream soured at the thought of Sapnap and George’s friendship. Them discussing how Dream had ruined his weekend plans for the next two months, George trying to steal his best friend.

He pushed down the feeling of betrayal, it wasn’t fair to Sapnap. He could reserve that feeling exclusively for George.

“Yeah, maybe.” Dream hummed, noncommittal. He glanced out the window, the school was in sight. It was towering over him, looming and gothic. Dream was suddenly overcome, every part of him was saying don’t go in. He pushed the thoughts down and refocused on Sapnap.

“You might even enjoy it, George is really funny!” Dream could tell he was trying to spin this into a positive, but the thought of having to spend two hours a week with George for two months made him feel hopeless. He imagined it, the hours he’d have to listen to George try to boss him around, trying to make him feel stupid. George would try to one-up him every chance he got, that was just who he was. He could never just let Dream win.

Before Dream could reply, the car was parked. He looked at Sapnap, who didn’t seem quite as sombre as Dream did. To Dream, it felt like a solemn occasion. To Sapnap, it felt like dropping his friend off while he was on his way to do the weekly food shop. 

“I don’t want to go in.”

Sapnap, ever sensitive, just laughed. He shoved Dream’s shoulders towards the door in a gentle but firm attempt to get him out of the car.

“Go on Dream, I have to get shit for dinner.”

Dream was walking and into the school before he had the chance to talk himself out of it. He wasn’t worried about the work. How hard could it be to recite some Shakespeare, or whatever it was they did in weekend English. He was worried about who he’d have to work _with._ He didn’t know anyone taking the class other than George.

When he entered the classroom, he was sure he was in the wrong room. At first, he thought there was no one in there. That was before he noticed the woman in the corner, facing the walls. Dream felt like he was interrupting something. He knocked on the door, which was already open. It was more of a polite way to say ‘Excuse me miss, you’re not possessed, right?’. She whipped around at the sound of Dream’s knuckled on the heavy wood. He was fairly sure she was _not_ possessed.

As she stepped quickly towards him, he noticed her jumper. Plastered across the front there was the face of a multi-coloured pug. Her hair was wild around her, swamping her face, and her glasses made her eyes look like orbs too big for her face.

“Hello dear, sit down please, sit down. Welcome! You must be George?” 

Dream rushed to correct her, rather than be mistaken for _George_ of all people, but she had already moved on.

“I am Ms Dahlman, so _so_ happy to have you here in English. What an opportunity! God, you’re so lucky. In my youth, we didn’t have these weekend class options. God, _so lucky_ you all are. I am just _so_ happy to have you here!” She was talking a mile a minute. Dream felt paralysed under her gaze, waiting for her to take a breath so he could interject.

She continued for four minutes, telling him how lucky he was to have this opportunity. He didn’t have the heart to tell her it wasn’t his choice. He did however want to clear up that he was definitely _not_ George.

Before he got his chance, there was another knock at the door. George’s voice came from the doorway, slow and soft. It was a stark contrast to Ms Dahlman.

“Sorry, I couldn’t find the room. I’ve never had weekend classes before.” George was standing, messy-haired and disinterested. Dream thought he looked arrogant. It was just like George to be late, he had no regard for other people’s time. Something shameful in Dream couldn’t wait to tell Sapnap, to prove he was ten times the friend George could be. But he wasn’t sure if good punctuality was quite enough to convince him.

“It’s fine, just come in.” Ms Dahlman sounded pained at the interruption, but she soldiered through. “You can sit down here next to George.”

George, the real George, quirked his eyebrow. 

“That’s funny, my name is George too.” Dream wanted to wipe his smug smirk right off his face. Ms Dahlman however, seemed overjoyed with the development.

  
“Oh! Two George’s! Heavens above, who would’ve ever thought? I knew your name couldn’t be Dream, but that was all it said on the attendance form they gave me! I said to them, I said ‘Dream? Well that can’t be a real name, can it?’ but they told me it was the preferred name, so it was what I was to use. George is much more sensible.” Dream felt his cheeks burning, but he didn’t want to get aggressive. He tried to push the feelings down. 

Looking at George, who seemed barely able to contain his laughter, made that a lot harder. Dream nodded at Ms Dahlman, to be polite, but she didn’t notice. She just continued speaking, something Dream was starting to note as a consistent course of action for her.

“As I was saying, the grade you get in this class will be added to your overall GPA for the subject. Normally, it’s used to bring up the average but obviously,” she gestured to the empty class “people just don’t care about English the way they used to.”

Only then did it strike Dream, him and George were the only two taking the class. Unless someone was running 8 minutes late for the first class, no one else was coming. Dream wanted to sink into his chair and never get up again.

Before he could figure out how to melt himself down, Ms Dahlman was explaining their first assignment. 

“Now, for the first two months boys you will be writing a speech!” She paused, for dramatic effect. It didn’t work. Dream and George were looking at her with the same badly disguised disinterest. She continued, consistent as ever. “Now I heard about your, how to put this, _communicational issues_.” She grimaced at the mention of Dream and George’s earlier conflict. “So!” She punctuated herself with a short clap. “The speech will be titled ‘What my partner has taught me.’ It’s going to be a great opportunity for you two to learn how to cooperate!” 

Dream did not want the opportunity to cooperate with George. He was stuck up, rude, inconsiderate. He acted as if he was better than everyone else, scoffing and looking down at them. Dream had plenty of friends, he didn’t want or need George.

Ms Dahlman, unsurprisingly, was not finished speaking. And so she continued, taking Dream out of his pessimistic thoughts. 

“Now, I can see no reason to keep you here.” Dream and George looked at each other instinctually, then up at her smiling face, waiting for an explanation. “I’ll be giving you sheets that I’ll need to be signed by your parents to prove every week that you’re putting the time in together, as well as a guide to writing the speech. But, really boys, I can’t imagine why you would have to stay in the school.”

Ms Dahlman seemed to be about fifty, possibly older. Dream had no idea how she had navigated the world so far. It seemed she never even paused her monologues to breathe.

She gave the sheets to both Dream and George, and then she just left. She walked out the door and into her car without a glance back. The boys were left stunned in her wake.

Dream looked at George. George looked at Dream. Neither said anything, neither knew what to say.

Before Dream could start the inevitable conversation, George had taken out his phone. Self-obsessed as ever. Dream commented, emboldened by his evident social superiority,

“Well, that’s a bit rude-” Before he could finish, George had interrupted.

“Can you drive?” George hadn’t even spared him a glance. _So rude_. Dream couldn’t say he was surprised. Dream rolled his eyes. George didn’t seem to notice.

“No. What does that have to do with anything?” Dream didn’t try to stop the animosity from seeping into his voice. George didn’t seem to notice.

“Well I can’t drive either, I got the bus here. And we can’t just stay in here, it smells bad.” Dream didn’t want to admit it, but George was right. It did smell bad. 

Dream started to speak. At the same time, George looked up from his phone. They both spoke at the same time, the same idea.

“I’m texting Sapnap.”

“Maybe Sapnap can-”

Dream laughed nervously. George didn’t laugh back. Sapnap was collecting them within ten minutes, a bag of shopping in the back.

Before long, they were sitting together on Sapnap’s couch, alone. Sapnap had left the room to make some food for them. Dream would’ve been happy to sit in silence until Sapnap came back with the snacks, but George wasn’t on the same wavelength.

“So, um, how are you?” George’s voice trailed off as he spoke. It felt like he wanted to be there even less than Dream.

“Good. Fine.” Dream was curt. He hadn’t expected George to make conversation, and he wasn’t going to try and encourage it. George could go back to texting on his phone forever for all Dream cared.

“Good.” George was returning his energy. His friendly conversationalist charade hadn’t lasted very long. Dream tried to settle back into the silence between them.

It didn’t stay like that for long. By the time Sapnap was back, he was entering to hear George yelling.

“Seven billion people in the world and I get stuck doing this with you! Either I’m cursed or God likes playing house.” He was standing on one side of the couch, Dream on the other. Anytime Dream moved, George moved the opposite way.

“Fuck you, George!”

Sapnap just wanted to get everyone some snacks. 

He made them recount the argument, word for word, starting with George tapping his fingers ‘too loud’ on the arm of the couch.

Before long, Sapnap was telling them both off. He couldn’t say he was shocked that he had to explain that George telling Dream “I can say with utmost certainty, that you are definitely, A Bitch.” was not working cooperatively. 

Dream was just as bad. But he did at least look remorseful while recounting his shout of “Every time you open your mouth I want to push you over the edge of a cliff and I mean that with all my heart.”

In the end, Sapnap made them sit in silence at opposite ends of the couch. Dream tried to feel guilty, he really did, but he couldn’t bring himself to regret squabbling with George, or chasing him around the couch. He was just so _awful_. Someone needed to knock him down a peg. And it’s not like he couldn’t take it, he was coming back just as hard as Dream. Maybe even harder.

Dream didn’t feel guilty for fighting with George, but he did feel guilty for getting Sapnap tangled up in the middle of it all. Dream could tell he hated the tension he and George had created. 

Dream glanced towards George, checking to see if he looked as guilty as Dream felt, only to be met with George’s eyes staring at him. Weirdo. George nodded his head towards Sapnap, then between him and Dream. Dream didn’t want to admit it, but he understood.

George was saying ‘Look what we did.’ He was saying ‘Come on, we’ve to fix this.’ 

As much as it hurt him, Dream knew George was right. He looked up at him. George was mouthing something. Dream looked at his lips.

He was saying ‘Fuck you.’

Dream couldn’t hold in his laugh, isolated and muffled. Luckily, it was covered up by George’s exaggerated apology. 

“Dream, I’m sorry for annoying you on purpose, and then for saying mean things to you.” Dream nearly had to physically restrain himself from jumping up and down, yelling ‘I told you so!’ He had known George was annoying him on purpose. Instead, he announced his apology as a reply.

“That’s okay George. I am sorry for chasing you around the couch and also for saying mean things to you.” He stopped himself from adding the ‘I am also sorry that you are a little bitch.’ He was too mature. 

Instead of a relieved laugh, Sapnap’s brow furrowed. Dream could almost hear his mind moving at a mile a minute. George must have noticed it too. They both left it, but Sapnap wasn’t saying anything. And Dream had never considered patience his strongest virtue.

“Just say it Sapnap.” Dream and George were both looking at him expectantly.  
  


“Huh?” Sapnap looked shocked that they had noticed his internal conflict.

“He’s right, whatever you’re thinking. Just say it. I can practically hear you thinking.” George agreed with Dream. It was a day full of firsts.

“Do you guys actually hate each other? Like, there’s no reason to. Or, do you just enjoy the feeling of having someone to hate? I don’t get it.”

Dream didn’t know what to say. They had never talked about it so openly, him and George. It was an unspoken truth, so obvious it didn’t need to be acknowledged. 

Montague versus Capulet, Taylor versus Katie, Dream versus George.

George and Dream just stared at each other, frozen. Sapnap moved on before either of them answered.

“You know what, nevermind. It doesn’t even matter.”

The silence made Dream feel guilty, looking at Sapnap made him feel worse. He was holding himself with annoyance, rare but visible. Before Dream could try and apologise, George was changing the subject. If he was someone else, Dream would've been thankful. But he was not anyone else, so Dream thought it was rude. 

“So, where is everyone? The house is empty.” George was right. Both of Sapnap’s parents were out, a rare occurrence. The house was quiet, and the noise was obviously missing. There was no smell of cooking, no top of the pops radio. Dream hardened at the thought of George realising there was something wrong in Sapnap’s house before he could. He wasn’t surprised, it was just like George to make sure he mentioned it before Dream got a chance. 

Dream scoffed. George didn’t notice, and if he did he didn’t turn around. 

“Oh,” Sapnap’s eyes widened, shocked at the observation. Dream made a mental note to pay more attention to how Sapnap was doing. “My dad, he’s- he’s out of town.” Sapnap didn’t say anything else about it. Instead, he did his best to help George and Dream.

They tried to work, they really did, but it was hard. The main task was to listen and learn from each other, but Dream would have rather died than learn anything from George, and the sentiment was clearly reciprocated. It had gotten to the point where neither of them were even saying anything, just looking at Sapnap waiting for instruction.

Sapnap, bless him, he tried his best. But one thing Dream and George could agree on was that it was easy to say no to Sapnap’s ideas.

“Why don’t you bond over your childhoods or something?” Sapnap threw out his fifth idea in ten minutes. Dream and George glanced to each other before replying.

“That’s dumb.”

“Ew, no Sapnap.”

Sapnap rolled his eyes

“Okay, fine. Whatever, you guys have fun.” He took his laptop from the coffee table and put in his headphones, ignoring Dream and George’s shouts of protest.

“No, Sapnap come on! Give us another idea!” Dream whined. Sapnap shook his head, trying to hide a smile.

“Sorry guys, but I do actually have my own work to do.”

Without Sapnap, things went off track quickly. George and Dream were sitting on opposite sides of Sapnap. George was cross-legged on the floor, messing with a piece of paper. Dream was draped across the armchair, head tilting back up to the ceiling. He was tossing up and down a soccer ball.

George and Dream were thinking out loud, having long abandoned brainstorming for their speeches. It was easy to ignore it when they had an infinite two months stretching out in front of them.

“Why did you fight so hard for it to be weekends?” Dream threw the question out into the air, hardly thinking about George’s reply.

“Well, I have shit to do after school.” Dream could not imagine a single thing that George might have to do after school. “Plus, I knew you have soccer training after school. I figured the team couldn’t function without their captain.” George said it sarcastically, but he couldn’t mask the truth in the statement. George knew when Dream had soccer, even if it was probably just because of Sapnap. And he had accommodated him when negotiating their punishment. 

George had done something nice for Dream, without even telling him. He had just done it, quiet and personal.

Dream didn’t know how to digest this new information.

He was so preoccupied with the idea of George being in any way considerate, he didn’t notice him picking up a new sheet of paper, tearing off a corner and rolling it up into a ball. Before Dream could glance in his direction, the paper ball had hit him on the nose.

“Hey!” Dream’s head snapped towards George. He had the audacity to _smile._

“Oops,” George deadpanned. Dream was whining for Sapnap within the second.

“It wasn’t an accident! It wasn’t and you know it! Sapnap, Sapnap! Tell him!” Sapnap just rolled his eyes. Dream glared at George.

“Try that again. Try it, I dare you.” Dream tried his best to sound tough. He was big, he was intimidating. He was the captain of the state champion soccer team. George couldn’t do shit to him.

George threw another piece of paper.

“Sapnap! He did that on purpose!” Dream whined. He didn’t realise how similar to an eight-year-old he sounded until the words had already left his mouth. Sapnap didn’t even look up from his laptop. He felt the blood rushing to his cheeks. 

Dream picked back up his soccer ball from his chest, a plan forming. Before he could even raise his hand, George was talking.

“Throw it, throw it and see what happens to you.” Dream gaped at George, he hadn’t even been looking at him. How did he know the soccer ball was coming? Just then, George did look. His eyes shot up from the paper crane he was making to meet Dream’s. 

George’s eyes pierced him, frosty and chilling. Dream didn’t think he had ever looked into someone’s eyes the way he was doing just then. He felt like he could read George’s mind. It was saying ‘ _Don’t you fucking dare’._ Dream put back down the soccer ball slowly. The second George looked away, he threw it. 

As the hours went by, George’s mask of indifference, his icy remarks and snarky comments, they faded away. A different George was filling his place. Still snarky, still acting as if he was just a little bit better than Dream, but different. He was excitable, quicker to smile. 

George wasn’t as bad as Dream thought he was. Sure, he was a little bit rude. And he was definitely pretentious. He wasn’t as arrogant as Dream had thought he would be. And, even if it pained him to say it, he was funny.

All these things combined, he wasn’t the worst person to spend time with. No one noticed that the two mandatory hours had passed. They just stayed on Sapnap’s sitting room floor together, talking. George wasn’t a bad listener.

Dream was telling the story of his awful Monday morning, the first day of senior year. He was a good storyteller, he prided himself on that. Even Sapnap had taken off his headphones to listen. He had just gotten to the part of the story where he had to sit next to Weird Sarah. The smile George had been wearing was slipping slowly as he told him the woeful tail of having to sit next to her. George interrupted for the first time in hours.

“Hey, don’t be mean.” George was looking serious, an expression he hadn’t worn in hours. Dream didn’t understand why.

“Sarah’s actually a childhood friend. She’s really nice when you get to know her.”

Dream understood why. He felt like an idiot.

“Oh, shit, shit. Sorry, I didn’t realise. Shit. I’m sorry.” He tried his best to sound sincere, a stained sort of guilt overcoming him. George’s face didn’t change.

“No, it’s okay. It’s fine. I just forgot who you were for a second there.”

Dream felt like shit. Sarah hadn’t even done anything to him. But something in his mind was whispering to him. _It wasn’t his fault if George was friends with her. Maybe they were both weird. This was classic George, trying to make him feel bad no matter what he did._ Dream tried to push it away, but it was there. Lying underneath his brain, polluting his thoughts.

George, the George that Dream had come to know in that evening at Sapnap’s house, was suddenly gone. He stayed another half-hour, but it wasn’t the same. They focused on the work, writing about speech structures and other things Dream couldn’t have cared less about. And then George was gone, collected from the footpath outside Sapnap’s quiet house by his mother.

Dream and Sapnap were left alone in his sitting room. Dream wanted to sink into the floor and never get up again.

“Well That wasn’t, that wasn’t as bad as I expected.” Sapnap tried his best, but he didn’t even sound convincing to himself.

“It was bad.” Dream groaned, getting down to lie on the carpeted floor.

“Well, don’t undersell it. It wasn’t all bad.” Sapnap prodded him gently in the side with his foot. Dream squirmed.  
  


“It was all bad.” Mixed with the embarrassment, there was a bitter kind of regret. Dream had ruined something good, something new. Before he could sink too far down his hole of sorrow, Sapnap was there. 

“You should text him, to like apologise or something.” Sapnap had stood up to clean the sitting room, bring their plates into the kitchen. The conversation was over. Dream heaved himself off the floor, despite the weight of his self-pity. 

“Yeah, okay. Okay. Yeah.”

It was later that night when Dream got the chance to text George. It was easier to send difficult texts from the safety of his blanket.

**Dream**

**(10:14 pm)** hey, its dream. Im sorry for talking shit about sarah. 

**(10:15 pm)** It was mean and wasnt fair i feel really bad about it

Dream hadn’t realised just how much he actually wanted George’s forgiveness until he saw the three dots next to George’s name.

**Gogy <3**

**(10:16 pm)** its cool. dont do it again though it was a dick move

**Dream**

**(10:16 pm)** yeah i know :(

**Gogy <3**

**(10:17 pm)** also for future reference i never read texts. Message me on sc if you need me its georgenotfound

At 10:18 pm, George got a notification.

**Dreamwastaken has added you as a friend.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :)) another chapter done baby please comment I love comments. it doesn't even have to be about the fic tell m about your dogs or other pets. I love cats
> 
> this was actually meant to have a whole other half but that would've been two long so now its two chapters hehe


	3. Rusty Swings

Dream was a winner, it was what he did. Ever since he was a kid, losing had always felt unnatural. It was wrong on a molecular level. The shame of it, the loss of control.

When he was younger, he used to challenge his older brother to wrestling matches. His brother thought it was fun, just some rough and tumbling. Dream on the other hand, Dream treated it like the Olympics. He would abandon any kind of formality if it meant he would win. 

He would kick and scream, clawing and biting his brother. He ignored the feeling of skin under his nails, just focusing on winning. After the first few times, Dream’s brother stopped saying yes when Dream asked to wrestle. He counted that as a win.

He had the same spirit when it came to soccer. He had captained the school’s team to two state championship victories in two years. The entire school knew him, the entire state. They were the best team, in every soccer team of the entire state. They were winners.

It wasn’t all him, they were a great team, but Dream elevated them. When Dream got better, he brought everyone else along with him. 

When college scouts came to watch their games, they were there to see Dream. But they couldn’t ignore the rest of the team. They worked as a unit, weaving and dodging as if they were all a part of one common entity.

Soccer was Dream’s life. He had been playing since he was a kid. It was easy. When he was playing soccer, he knew what he was doing. There were no big decisions to make, it was just get the ball in the net. It was as natural and breathing.

His talent was a huge added bonus, but even without it Dream thought he would still be playing. 

Soccer was Dream’s life, but he now had other commitments. Well, one other commitment.

George.

More specifically, trying to figure out how to tell George he was going to need to reschedule the mandatory time they were meant to spend together. George was, in fact, the one who had managed to broker the weekend slots. He had saved the both of them from having to stay back after school three times a week. And, he had done it just so Dream would be able to keep going to his soccer training.

Considering all of this, it really was an annoying oversight that the soccer team had a training session scheduled for the exact time Dream and George had agreed to meet up. The fact that Dream had been the one to schedule it last month made it even more annoying.

So, Dream thought he justifiably worried about asking him to further change the arranged time. He had spent almost four days trying to figure out what to say, and how to say it without sounding like he was spitting in George’s face, when it struck him. The solution was so painfully obvious.

Dream was nothing if not consistent. He did the exact same thing he always did, the same thing he had always done. Lying on his bed, throwing his balled-up socks into a drawer across the room, he texted Sapnap.

**Dream (10:41 am)**

Ft?

Sapnap’s name was on his screen in seconds. Dream accepted the call.

“Sapnap, please help me.” Sapnap didn’t flinch. He just smiled warmly down the phone, a quiet giggle passing through the speaker.

“Okay Dreamie-Boy, calm it down. Whatever it is, it is not the end of the world. Chillax.” Sapnap had never stopped using chillax as if it was a regular verb, not since he started in 2011. Dream decided that right then was not the time to mention it - even if he wanted to.

“I can’t figure out how to reschedule with George.” Sapnap’s bark of laughter was not reassuring in the slightest.

“What?” Dream didn’t like the glee coming from Sapnap’s voice.

“I can’t figure out how to tell him I need to change our meeting time!” Dream hated the way his voice whined.   
  
“Dude.” Despite his best efforts to hang onto his panic, Dream felt the calm seeping in. The familiarity, it was an inevitable comfort. Sapnap continued. “You are a  _ senior. _ ”   
  
“And?” Dream tried to throw one of his washed pairs of socks into the open drawer across his room. He missed.   
  
“I swear, sometimes you act ten years old.” His words were laced with annoyance but on his phone screen, Dream could see Sapnap smiling. He rolled his eyes.    
  
“Well, what do I  _ do _ , Sapnap?” Instead of an answer, Dream was met with a change of scenery. His phone screen went to a close up of Sapnap’s face, to a blurry screen saying  _ Paused.  _ Sapnap had paused him to go to some other app on his phone. 

“Chillax, and-” Dream’s frustration tipped over the edge.

“ _ Chillax _ is not a real word! Stop saying Chillax!” Dream groaned as another pair of socks missed his drawer.   
  
“Okay, well, hurtful. I know you don’t mean that. And I’ve texted George.” Dream froze.

“You what?” His words were full of warning. Saapnap either didn’t notice or didn’t care.

“I just texted him, just there!”

“Sapnap! What the fuck? What did you even say? Oh my  _ god,  _ why would you do that?” Dream was cut off by a telltale ding emitting from his phone. He didn’t say anything, he didn’t move.

“I heard that!” Sapnap’s singsong taunt came from Dream’s screen.

**George (10:48 am)**

Cool

“Anything to say?” In FaceTime, Sapnap’s face was getting too close to the camera. Dream had to suppress his smile, he had to deal with George.

“Yeah, fuck you. And George says it’s cool.”

“Fuck you do, Dreamie-Weemie, Sapnap works his magic again!” Dream let his smile pass through, barely. Begrudgingly. 

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” Sapnap was laughing as he hung up the phone. Dream was left alone with George’s text. He figured it was polite to reply.

**Dream (10:49 am)**

Sorry for not texting you myself

George’s reply was whizzing through the air in seconds

**George (10:49 am)**

its fine

Despite his common sense, Dream found himself replying. Every time George texted a reply, no matter how dry, how unenthusiastic, he kept trying to keep the conversation going. Eventually, he all but forced George out of his virtual shell.

Even as he was getting into Sapnap’s truck over an hour later, his face was stuck in his phone, in the conversation he had coaxed George into.

**George (12:09 pm)**

iron man will always be the best superhero. the whole mcu was built on his back that's just common sense

**Dream (12:09 pm)**

You sound like a nerd

**George (12:10 pm)**

well dont be rude

**Dream (12:10 pm)**

ughhh you sound like bad

You’d probably love him actually

**George (12:11 pm)**

Dream?

Dream didn’t think before replying

**Dream (12:11 pm)**

yeah ?

**George (12:11 pm)**

you know me and bad are like good friends

Dream ignored his burning cheeks as he got out of Sapnap’s truck and approached the soccer team. He had not known that.

The team were ready to go, as usual. They were dedicated kids. Dream had them running laps once he put his bag, and phone, in the changing room.

They were midway through a practice match, half of the team versus the other half, when Dream noticed him. George was leaning on the edge of the fence surrounding the pitch. He was early.

For Dream, an audience didn’t change his performance. He was good, he was always good. Behind all the training and technique was pure talent. A lot of the time, other players’ would bring along their girlfriends or some of their friends to hang around the training. Dream couldn’t have given less of a shit. 

But there during that practice match, Dream felt something new. He hadn’t felt it at the State Championship. He hadn’t felt it when the scouts were analysing him. He hadn’t even felt it in his first-ever game back when he was 6 years of age. It was a kind of pressure, light and inconsequential. It was George’s eyes on him.

Normally when he was playing, there was a kind of understanding. The scouts knew he was good, the girlfriends and parents, the friends and families, the teachers, the coaches, even the other teams. They all knew Dream was good. They all expected him to play well. George was different. George didn’t give a shit what Dream was doing. He barely glanced at him. Somehow, the boy was more interested in his phone than Dream’s quest towards a hat trick. 

He didn’t mind it, not really. It was just new. It was as if someone had gotten inside his mind and moved all the furniture ten centimetres to the left. If anything, he appreciated it. It kept him on his toes, gave him something to prove. It was another chance to see if he could up his game. Anytime he felt George’s eyes on him, it made him run faster, kick further, push harder. 

The time went quick, and before long it was all over. Dream’s team had pummeled Sapnap’s, except for one goal. Sapnap had seen Dream’s weakness, he had stolen the ball right from under Dream when he was glancing over to see if George was looking.

After the handshakes, the water mixed with good-natured teasing, the lightening speed showers, Dream was left alone. His hair was dripping onto the hoodie he had pulled on. He was the last one in the changing room, he always was. 

He told everyone it was because he was the captain. If anyone ever needed to talk, there was a sure place they could catch him alone. All they had to do was run back, claim a forgotten boot or hat, and he’d be there.

That was a part of it undoubtedly. But, if you stripped the layers back, peeled Dream’s skin away to look down at his pulsing core, you’d have seen privacy above all else. He kept to himself, minded his business. Other than Sapnap and Bad, no one fully knew him. And even that was pushing it. Sapnap and Bad knew the version of him that he showed. They saw some bad bits, but they’d never see the Dream that he hid.

They wouldn’t know the Dream that scrolled through Instagram on a Sunday night. They’d never know the Dream who cried when his toast got burned on a particularly stressful morning.

They saw him, the real him, but only the entertaining parts. They saw the anger and the tears, the elation and the subsequent fall, but they never saw him be boring. 

If someone’s boring, they can be left. It’s easy to leave someone you don’t care about, and it’s easy to not care about someone boring. 

So Dream let them see him, the real him, but only when it was entertaining. No one saw him alone in his room, watching podcasts on YouTube and folding his washing. That was the kind of person it was easy to leave. He couldn’t be that.

He kept it all to himself, the parts that didn’t fit into the Dream personality. Anything that didn’t match ‘State Champion Captain’. Anything that didn’t scream ‘Golden Boy’ was for his eyes only. No one can ruin something they don’t know about.

Dream was able to change his clothes quickly. He brought his body wash from home and he didn’t wash his hair. But, apparently, he wasn’t fast enough. Before he had his shoes back on, George was barging in, Sapnap trailing behind him.

“Sorry, I did try and stop him.” The grin on Sapnap’s face told a different story. Dream just rolled his eyes, grabbing his gear bag and leaving. They didn’t follow him out the door, but the room echoed. He could hear talking, mainly Sapnap.

“Wherever you guys end up going today, can you keep an eye on Dream? The adrenaline from training hypes him up too much. He might say something stupid and get punched.”

It was nice, to hear such solid proof that Sapnap knew him in the best way Dream would let him, that he cared so loudly. 

  
“Oh, I get to see Dream being punched?” 

George promptly snapped Dream out of his appreciation. Before Dream could move away from the door, they were walking on top of him. George’s smile dropped when he saw Dream eavesdropping, but Sapnap’s got bigger. He swiped for Dream. Despite Dream’s aching legs and exhausted lungs, he managed to dodge. Before Sapnap could swipe again, he was jogging towards the truck.

While Sapnap chased him, screaming about his stalker tendencies, George looked away, following slowly behind them. He had the decency to blush, slightly. Maybe manners weren’t completely dead just yet. Sapnap said his goodbyes before Dream could beg for a lift. He said he had ‘ _ errands to run _ ’. Which errands fell on the shoulders of an 18-year-old boy, Dream didn’t know. 

Suddenly, it was all real. It was just George and Dream, staring at each other on an empty soccer pitch. Any words Dream tried to force out died in his throat. These were uncharted waters, George and him alone and civil.

To be George’s enemy was easy, but this new thing. This budding acquaintanceship. It was more complicated. It was so much easier to just go back to how it was, bitter and stinging. It was like a wound that had scabbed over, and Dream could never resist picking at a scab.

“Why are you here, George?” His tone was harsher than he intended, a cold contrast to the playful banter he had with Sapnap. Dream tried to ignore the split second of hurt he could see on George’s face.

“Sapnap got the time wrong.” George’s face was closed off again quickly. Dream felt guilt knocking at the door of his morality. He turned the key in the lock, determined to keep it out.

“Oh.” Dream hoped George couldn’t read minds. Because if he could, he would be able to see the way Dream’s conscience was floundering. This vague hatred was a lot less comforting when alone with someone.

Before Dream could ponder on George’s telepathic capabilities for too long, he was walking away. George’s back had turned on him.

Before Dream could make his protests known, George had turned his head in Dream’s direction. 

“Come on, it looks like rain.” Dream glanced up, the sky was clear. He didn’t mention it. Instead, he followed George as he walked to the bus stop.

George took him to a café. It was a small place, quaint and cosy. The outside was a murky turquoise with glass panes everywhere. A pretentious coffee house. Dream thought it was a bit on the nose, even for George.

A tip jar was knocked over while George was ordering their drinks. Dream could hear the harsh clatter from the isolated table he had snagged them in the furthest corner. George’s face was burning red when he sat down with his americano and Dream’s hot chocolate, no marshmallows extra cream.

While George retrieved his things from his shoulder bag, folders, paper, pens, Dream started to think about the assignment. They were more complicated than they seemed, the speeches and the boys. The speeches had to have a five-page accompanying essay to explain how cooperation was beneficial, and to support all the points made in the five-minute speech. That was a page per speaking minute, if Dream’s maths was correct.

He tried to think, to plan how to go about it all. It was harder than he had expected. Most of what they had done the first day had turned out to be useless, upon Dream’s inspection when he got home. Before he could reach his epiphany, George was tearing him away from his introspection. 

“I swear, if you keep doing that, I’m going to sew your eyelids to your kneecaps.”

Dream looked blankly at him, frozen in his confusion. George didn’t lessen up.

“Tapping your pen against the glass. Stop it.”

Dream hadn’t even realised he was doing it, an old nervous habit. Or it would have been, if Dream was the kind of person to get nervous.

He and George sat there, staring at each other. George didn’t look as embarrassed as Dream wanted him to. Dream didn’t look as sorry as George wanted him to.

“Please.” George looked like he had to force the word out of his mouth. The same George as always. Dream rolled his eyes, but he put down the pen. 

“So,” Dream started them off. He was past the stage of letting any awkwardness seep in. “The speeches.” It took George a second to catch up, his mind was still at the counter where he had picked up all the coins individually. 

“The speeches.”

The place to start seemed obvious to Dream,

“Tell me about yourself.”

George looked up at him, curious eyes and slouched spine. One of his eyebrows, just one, shot up. Dream rushed to clarify. 

“I mean, for the speech. So I can write the speech.” George’s face didn’t change with the explanation. It was still staring at him from across the shitty coffee table. His brow was furrowed and his smile was appearing out of nowhere, slowly. Dream hated it. It was all so jarringly new, having someone in front of him who he couldn’t read.

George had this new kind of power over him. He’d felt it during the soccer training but here it was so much clearer. In the air between them, Dream was sure it would suffocate them both, that mantra of  _ ‘what is he thinking _ ’, over and over. A constant roar. He was certain George could feel it too, he was giving himself away. 

This wasn’t how Dream was meant to act. Dream was confident and collected, funny and commanding. Dream was the captain of the state goddamn champion team. Dream wasn’t on the edge of his seat, waiting to hear what George was going to say. 

Before Dream could think himself off a cliff, George was breaking in. 

“I fold my socks.” It seemed like a simple thing, but it stopped Dream mid-thought. It disarmed him completely. 

Later, he would realise it was the idea that George did things that Dream didn’t know about that had caught him so off-guard. It was the realisation that Dream didn’t understand him as well as he thought he did, that he hated someone he barely knew.

From there, it got easier. George knew all the words to Doja Cat’s “Say So”. Dream had accidentally become a bit of a Barb, a title he had to explain to George, after his sister went through a Nicki Minaj stage. George pirated films from the internet. Dream had been leeching off his aunt’s Netflix for years. Dream thought zodiacs were stupid, but he always found himself looking his up. George loved astrology. They both liked the stars.

George proved Dream’s hypothesis from their meeting, the one held the previous week in Sapnap’s house. George was actually funny, and Dream didn’t mind being around him.

Eventually, George noticed the barista’s eyes shooting them daggers. Apparently, ordering a hot chocolate and an americano is not enough to warrant an hour of sitting time. They had to leave. George shouldered his bag and nudged Dream. He was trying to suppress his smile. It was all so different to the George Dream had known.

“Come on, let’s go.” He was already standing. Dream nodded up at him.

“Better to leave than to get kicked out.” George’s smile lessened.

“Is it?”

They walked through the streets, excited in a boring place. 

They ended up in front of one of the city’s deserted playgrounds. No one wanted their kids to play somewhere you could find needles. Once he saw the empty swing set, Dream was running. George was zipping quick behind him.

Once they were on a swing set together, the competition was inevitable. Dream was swinging higher than George, but George was trying his best to dispute that. 

Dream was throwing his full body weight into the swing, feeling his heels skitting along the floor, his legs careening through the air. He figured this must be what it feels like to fall, to jump. This floating feeling in his stomach, the lurch of it all. It must be what it feels like to fly.

George’s gleeful shrieks covered up the warning creaks of the rusty swing set. Dream wasn’t used to this kind openness around him. It was all so new, the giddiness. He tried to shift his swing into George’s path, the way his sisters used to when he was a few years younger. He got a slight kick in the back in response, but it was enough to dethrone him. He was left sprawled on the floor, George cackling behind him.

The time went too fast. Before long, they had tried everything in the playground. Dream was too tall for half of them, but he tried anyway. When he had stood on the swings, trying to copy George, he had banged his head on the bar supporting them. He could walk while doing the monkey bars.

They were back on the swings before long, swaying more than swinging. George was trying to make his swing work without any movement from him. Dream’s swing was drifting left and right. He didn’t do anything to put it back on the straight and narrow. 

Dream’s mind was eating at him. The logic of it all didn’t add up. This was George,  _ George _ , and George hated him. So why was he here, an hour over their mandatory time, on a rusty set of swings with him. Having fun, together.

“George?” The chains of the swing crossed over each other, trapping Dream between them. He threw his body weight the opposite way to free himself. A slow final battle.

“Dream.” George was looking at him, the same way he had been back in the café. All open eyes and open heart. Dream hated it.

“You hate me.” It wasn’t a question, Dream couldn’t bare a question. He just said it, hoping George understood. 

George hummed in response, eyes locked on his shoelaces.

“I don’t.”

And that was it, that was what Dream was afraid of. This was skydiving without the parachute, he was freewheeling. Here he was vulnerable, here he was showing a soft spot. It was weakness. 

He had always hated George, since age ten. And the reason, the pit of it all, it had always been because  _ George hated him first _ . And George had kept hating him, for the last eight years. Without that, there was nothing there. Their hatred was the only thing binding them. But, it was apparently one-sided.

“Oh.” It was strangled. It was all Dream could manage.

“I could never do it.” George was still looking at him, unreadable. Always so unreadable.   
  


“What?” Dream couldn’t look back at him. His eyes were locked on the soft ground below him. His voice was too strained.

“Hate you.” George’s voice showed no strain at all.

Dream hated the muffled ‘ _ Hmm _ ’ that left his throat in response. He didn’t understand how George could just say it.

Dream swung wordlessly, back and forth. Before the words had even entered his brain they were bubbling out of his mouth.

“Same.” It wasn’t eloquent, but George’s face showed that he understood. He had never hated him, not truly. Not in the real way, the irreversible way.

They were quiet then, just swinging together. George’s voice broke through the blanket of sedative still.

“You’re definitely not how I thought you were.” 

Dream jumped at the opportunity.

“How did you think I was?” 

George thought Dream was cocky. All he did was talk shit, and he could never back it up. Dream was quick to point out the two-state champion trophies his team had one, but George shook his head. 

“No, not like that. I mean like, outside of sport.”

He was loud in class, talking over the quiet kids. And he never smiled at strangers in the halls. He never had his homework done on time, and he never got in trouble for it. He was mean, rough around the edges. George didn’t say cruel, but Dream could hear him thinking it. 

He had figured that was what George thought he was - tough, angry, mean. But his edges weren’t that worn yet, he hadn’t learned enough to be tough.

He wanted to climb inside George’s skull and rearrange the pieces, sort it all out. It was true, a lot of what George said, but he wasn’t cruel. He was never cruel. He didn’t mean to talk over people, he was excitable. He didn’t notice the people in the halls, or the favouritism from the teachers

Above all, George thought he was fake. The act he put on, the loudness and confidence. He didn’t believe it.

Dream had thought the same about George. Alongside elitist, pretentious and stuck up. Also, plainwell rude. George listened as he explained it all.

“I just thought you thought you were like-” Dream looked up at the sky, letting his legs tilt-up above his body. He could feel blood rushing to his ears. “I don’t know. Like you acted like you were better than everyone else.”

George snorted. Dream’s head snapped towards him, incredulous.

“Kettle calling the pot!” George was smiling despite it all. It made Dream laugh as well.

“Actually though, why don’t you ever get involved? Like, ever.” Dream sat back up properly on his swing.

George just shrugged.

“I'd feel safer facing off a fucking pack of wolves." George’s voice was quiet, heading straight towards the ground. His feet kicked against the dirt. The swing wobbled.

Dream didn’t say anything, he didn’t think it was his place. He had never thought anything like that, it had never crossed his mind. He was Dream, being self-conscious wasn’t in his DNA. He wouldn’t have been able to bare it, the separateness of it all. He wouldn’t have been able to look in through the window at school life from the outside. But the way George was talking, muted and thoughtful, it made him want to understand.

Before he could think up a response, George was nudging his ankle. 

“Come on, we should go. Before the sun sets.” George got up, started to collect his things.

Dream hadn’t noticed the shortening Autumn sunsets. He grabbed George’s sleeve.

_ “Watch,”  _ he breathed, sacred. George’s limbs slowed, sinking him back to his swing.

Together, they watched the sun setting. The airy blues fading to dusty pinks, heavy orange. Before the sky was black, George was dragging Dream with him, mutters of  _ Well, I’m not going to get mugged tonight Dream. _

They ended up in the library, underused and underfunded.

Dream followed him inside, straight past the glaring librarian and up the stairs. He wasn’t used to it, following someone. Especially not George. But he knew the way and Dream didn’t, so he walked quietly behind him.

They turned a corner, and there they were. They were standing in a long corridor of computers, old and dusty. Dream wasn’t sure if it counted as a corridor, there was a wall at the other end, where the other opening should have been. There were long continuous desks on the two walls, and a computer every meter. They made the room thin enough to make them have to stand single file. He was practically standing on top of George, his toes brushing against George's heels.

Out of nowhere, George turned towards him. Dream flinched more than he would’ve wanted. They were left there, in the silence, George staring straight at him. Dream was a deer in headlights. He didn’t dare to move. They were barely inches apart.

“Dream, the door.” George’s voice was raspier in a whisper. His face was so close, Dream swore he could count the boy’s freckle. His lungs were burning, he had forgotten to keep breathing. “Dream?” George’s voice snapped him out of it. 

“Right. Yes. The door.” He spun around, reaching for a doorknob to shut them inside the one ended corridor, but he was met with an empty space. There was no door. He heard George sigh in frustration. Dream felt his ears burning, he hated it. 

“There’s no door.” He whispered it into the silence in front of him. George laughed, muted and soft.

“Here, show.” George tried to worm his way past Dream to get to the door, but the corridor was too narrow. His elbows banged into Dream’s gangly limbs, his knee hit the desk. His whispered  _ shit  _ came at the same time as the bang. They both froze, ears straining for any kind of ‘shhhh’ coming from downstairs. Nothing came. Either they both had bad hearing, or they were in the clear.

George managed to shove his way past a blushing Dream, where he easily grabbed the sliding glass door.

“Bullshit,” Dream muttered as George came back down the corridor towards him. George’s small, airy laugh accompanied the sound of Windows 8 booting up.

“Come on, get a seat. We’re under time pressure. I didn't expect you to be here for this.” One of the old computers was loading up a chess website.

“Wait, explain what’s going on now so you don’t have to midway through-” Dream paused. He didn’t know if whatever George was doing actually  _ had  _ a midpoint. “- midway through whatever you're doing.” Dream ignored George’s rolling eyes. 

“Speed chess. Chess plus speed. Not hard to figure out Dreamer.”

Dream didn’t think George had noticed his quiet nickname, it made his heart stutter. 

“Speed chess?” Dream looked at the screen. Rightfully so, there was a chessboard on it.

“Speed chess.” George pressed start.

Dream watched the pieces move, whizzing across the screen. It was like soccer, the speed of it all. The pace. Dream loved the quickness. Before he could catch his bearings, there was a banner on the screen and a smiling George was talking.

“So, that’s speed chess. But now I have to play an actual game. Against an actual person. It’s a tournament, every week. Normally it’s after school, but it got moved this week. And, Dream, I swear to god if you ruin this for me-” Dream cut him off before he could finish the thought. He knew George well enough now to know where it was going.

“I know, I know, you’ll kill me, no one will ever find my body, blah blah blah.” Dream ignored the way his heart lit up when George laughed.

George logged in and hit start.

Dream didn’t know anything about chess, he had never played and he never planned to. But he didn’t need to be a genius to tell that after a minute, George was losing. It was the furrow of his brow, the frown line set in his skin. It gave him away.

"You...do not look happy." Dream didn’t know how to help him, but judging by George’s gritted teeth, commentary was not the way to go.

"Thank you, Captain Obvious.”

Before another minute had passed, there was a banner on the screen pointing out George’s loss. The ‘ _ Better Luck Next Time, Player!’ _ didn’t feel very sincere to Dream.

One glance at George and it was clear he was disappointed.

“Sorry, George.” Dream lowered his eyes from the screen. It felt disrespectful to even look at the message of pity. George shrugged his shoulders, shook out his hands.

“It’s okay, I have another game. I just can’t get a perfect score now, so I probably won’t win this time” His voice was dejected. It made Dream want to help him. 

“Well, I mean, don’t be sad. Just, like, turn it off. Change it to anger.” George looked at Dream, brow furrowed again.

“Dream? That’s not, that’s not normal.” Dream froze. This was it, he was giving himself away. He wanted to reach out and scoop the pieces of him that he'd let out back between his ribcage. He didn’t want George to know about the switches and levers inside him, the careful calculation of his personhood. 

Instead, he laughed lightly.

“Oh, yeah. I didn’t explain it very well-” Before he had to think up some other way to explain his inner workings, George was distracted. Another game was starting. Dream didn’t feel upset for the distraction.

The more Dream watched him play chess, the more he wanted to understand chess. The only thing he had to go off of was George’s closed face. As far as Dream could tell, he wasn’t doing well. The stitch of the skin next to his eye gave that away.

George’s mutterings of ‘ _ Shit _ ’, ‘ _ Fuck _ ’ and the classic ‘ _ Godamn it _ ’ also helped Dream reach his conclusion. George didn’t leave much up to the imagination.

Just as Dream was about to make his condolences known, all the stitches and the lines disappeared. George’s eyes widened then creased, and then out of nowhere the banner was back on the screen. 

Except that time, it read ‘ _ Congratulations, Player!’ _

Dream couldn’t keep it in.

“Fucking  _ clutch, _ bro!” George laughed at the congratulations.

“Careful Dreamer, you’re inner frat boy is showing.” He was grinning, giddy with the excitement of it all.

Dream tried to ignore the way the nickname froze his brain for a second, how every neuron stopped in their tracks to drink it in.

George got up from the chair. His smile was subtle but he couldn’t hide the energy, Dream could see him balling up and releasing his fists. He was just as excited as Dream at the win, just in a different way.

“Come on. I’m not playing anymore, plus I have to be home before my mother thinks I’ve been kidnapped.” Dream hadn’t thought about what his mother would say when he got home.

The guilt he felt, vague and untouchable, at being five hours late was pushed to the back of his mind the second it entered. 

As Dream stood up, he felt his leg tangled between the chair and table. But it was too late. The second he pushed himself up he went careening back down to the floor. Before he knew what was happening, he was sprawled on his back, face on the dusty carpets. Instead of getting the sympathy he expected, George was standing above him, trying his best to contain his howls of laughter.

Dream cracked before he did. They stayed together, Dream lying flat on his back and George leaning against the desks, trying to muffle their shrieks.

Eventually, the librarian was standing above them. Dream wanted to say she looked more disappointed than mad, but she didn’t. She just looked mad. It was always so much harder not to laugh when you weren’t allowed to.

Dream tried his best to keep it in as she escorted them out but he didn’t stand a chance. The second he saw George’s foot catch on the last stair, he was a goner. George said only bats could have heard the frequency Dream reached when George fell.

Dream was like a tea kettle, crouched down next to George. George himself was a mirror of Dream in the computer room, sprawled on the floor, letting out sounds between groaning and snorting.

The difference was this time they had a stern librarian right next to them, shaking her head.

Eventually, the boys managed to bring themselves to their feet and stagger towards the door. Everything was setting them off. 

“Shhh, boys.” Her voice was stern. Dream howled into George’s ear. He was leaning on the other boy to keep from collapsing.

“We’re already fucking  _ leaving.” _ It was breathed into George’s ear - just for him to hear. There were tears brimming. George snorted, calling out to the woman at the desk behind him. 

“Sorry Dorothy,” Dream’s wheezing upon hearing her name didn’t do their sincerity any favours. 

“We’re leaving,  _ we’re leaving!”  _ The second they got out onto the library steps they were heaving. George had to sit on the step, he was in stitches. 

It took them a while to calm down, for the giddiness to dissipate. The cold was a big help, as was the dark. 

After they calmed down, Dream looked at him. He was slouched against the library wall, hair messy and cheeks red. His eyes were closed and his head was thrown back against the stone. The calm that filled him up when he was around George, it wasn’t normal. It wasn’t a regular thing. It compelled him.

“I’m sorry.” 

George’s eyes opened to look at him, still smiling.

“Huh?” The way his head tilted to the side reminded Dream of the dog he had when he was younger.

“I’m sorry, for hating you.” George shook his head at Dream’s sudden apology.

“You don’t have to be.” But Dream still was, in every inch of his body. He wanted to take it all back, the years of bitterness. Even if it was replaced with nothing, it would take away his guilt.

George went home, and then Dream went home. The second he was in the door his mother was lecturing him. It all went in one ear and out the next The moment Dream’s head hit the pillow, it was a gearbox. There were new parts, cogs turning and wheels spinning. Dream couldn't stop thinking about it all. And, above all else, was the nickname. George had called him ‘Dreamer’. It was immortalized, cast in amber by his mind.

The next Monday, there was a routine soccer training after school. It was two days after Dream’s adventure in café’s and swing sets and speed chess but that day was still burned into the forefront of his mind. He was with Sapnap, doing a slow drill together, just passing the ball while they waited for the rest of the team to get changed. Dream decided it was time to let him deeper into his brain.

“Sapnap.” Sapnap passed the ball back to him gently.

“Dream.” He was smiling at him, always smiling.

“I have to tell you something.” Dream didn’t like the way his voice sounded. Sapnap and sombreness didn’t go together.

“Famous last words!” Sapnap had proven Dream right, he was still smiling at him.

“Well, I’m kind of- I’m making friends with someone. But I don’t know how you’ll react to who it is.” Sapnap was still smiling.

“Come on, dude. Just rip the plaster right off!” Sapnap jumped up and down on the spot, waiting for Dream to pass the ball. Dream passed it.

“It’s George.” Sapnap’s face didn’t change, but it froze. 

“Put the plaster back on!” Sapnap kicked the ball, more towards Dream’s head than his feet.   
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please leave comments i love them so much!!! even if its just about the weather where your living. here its cold as fuck I swerarrr
> 
> also not relevant but heat waves is the 6th most popular English fic on the site, if you go by hits. the ones above her have up to 350 chapters and she has ten I am so happy for her and the mcyt squad as a whole! congratulations if you ever see this !!!!


	4. Hat Trick

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> psa - a hat trick is when one player gets three goals in one match.  
> i only know that because of primary school soccer.

Dream didn’t think texting George was meant to be this exciting. He didn’t think texting any of his friends was meant to be  _ exciting  _ point-blank _.  _ Not in the way texting George was. Every time his phone buzzed he was rushing to grab it, always on guard, always waiting. He had spent years calling his friends stupid for the way their faces lit up reading their phones. Now he was worse than all of them. But, it was different. This was George. And texting George  _ was  _ fun. 

Dream was certain now that he was definitely funny. And he was smart, in the hard kind of way. He was unpredictable. Dream never knew what was coming. And he was nice to talk to. Every message sent, every message received, Dream felt them growing closer. 

So, yeah, maybe his eyes were constantly scouring his phone screen. But he had a good reason. He was talking to George.

George, who said he didn’t normally talk to be people through the phone. He called it a handicapped form of communication, just as George-like as ever. Dream had forgotten to make fun of him for it, mind too busy with ‘ _ He doesn’t normally talk to people over the phone. He talks to you over the phone’.  _ It meant he was special.

**George (2:20 am)**

i dont want to annoy you lol

**Dream (2:20 am)**

if you sending me memes at fuck o clock in the morning was annoying me i wouldn’t have kept sending them back

George didn’t read the message for a full minute. Staring at the tiny symbol, showing his message was unopened, Dream couldn’t bring himself to feel pathetic. In the back of his mind he thought he should, but the rest of him was buzzing. Every cell was humming with a new kind of want. He wanted to know what George thought, hear how he felt. It was overwhelming. There was no room left for shame.

**George (2:23 am)**

i dont want to keep you up

Dont you have that match tomorrow

Dream did. It was against ‘ _ Saint Joseph’s Preparatory Institute _ ’ a private school just half an hour away from Dream and George’s school. The kids there were spoiled in ways Dream found difficult to understand, summer homes in Italy and money thrown away on nights out in the city. The person Dream thought Geoge had been just two weeks ago was nothing compared to the Saint Joseph boys. It was as if all of them wanted to play God, a family of clashing entitled titans, a Grecian mess. 

Dream was certain if anyone on his team brushed against one of their arms they’d be on the floor, crying for the referee. It was the first match of the season, only a challenge, but he had  been preparing his boys for almost three weeks to make sure they didn’t give away any fouls. Even if it didn’t affect their standing in the league it would affect team morale. It was important. He wanted to win, just like he always did.

But, that night, Dream couldn’t have cared less. The match, less than 24 hours away, was pushed to the back of his brain. His entire frontal lobe was taken up with George’s words, glaring brightly up at him from his screen, awaiting Dream’s reply.

**Dream (2:24 am)**

ur coming right?

Dream hit send, he always did. He was a full-send person down to the bone. For him, it was easy. He did everything with complete confidence, full fucking send. He couldn't imagine it any other way, not when everyone was hanging off his every word. Shame was foreign to him.

But, the second he hit the arrow on that message, something foreign happened. His stomach knotted itself, his heart sped up. His eyes glued themselves to the screen, trapping him in the silence of his bedroom, waiting for any kind of reply. Dream didn’t understand why he cared so much about a stupid message.

No matter how hard he tried to tell himself to calm down, it didn’t work. His mind couldn’t be reasoned with. Logic was out the window, replaced with the thought of George standing on the sidelines while Dream scored a winning goal. His heart was in palpitations for an agonising 40 seconds. George’s message was the first morsel of food in a year to Dream’s hungry eyes.

**George (2:24 am)**

do you want me to

Dream was typing a response before he could think. He didn’t need to think.

**Dream (2:24 am)**

yes

It wasn’t until he sent it that he realised how it could be read. Desperate. It was overwhelming, this new way of thinking. Dream had never considered how other people might read his texts. His mind never had the time to consider how he was perceived, always racing away from him. This new thing, it was dwelling. Dream hadn’t dwelled before.

**George (2:25 am)**

okay

ill go then

everyone knows i love to spend my saturday evenings outside in the cold

Dream didn’t mean to grin the way that he did when he read the reply. He didn’t even notice the smile snaking its way onto his. He had never smiled at someone's texts before.

**George (2:26 am)**

what time

Dream didn’t mean to lie. But he did  _ accidentally  _ tell George to be there an hour early so they had more time, away from the pressure of his role as captain. _ By accident _ . He felt justified in his deceit, his new constant urge to make George his friend was enough to allow it. He wanted to be around him, talking and laughing, bickering and disagreeing and teasing. He wanted all of it, the before and after of the years of resentment. The new growing fondness that Dream was trying his best to ignore.

Above all, he wanted to be liked by George. He wanted the reassurance of his approval.

If George, who had hated him for years, who had been on the receiving end of his cold stares and scoffs, could like him then it would be sure. Dream could be certain that he was a good person.

They kept texting until George sent his death sentence, in the form of a digital message.

**George (2:31 am)**

go to sleep

And that was that. George’s status switched to inactive and Dream was left staring at the tiny dot where his green light used to be, the Daisy to his Gatsby.

**Dream (2:31 am)**

george

?

georgie 

ok 

Dream forced himself to turn off his phone, it felt as if he was cutting off a hand. Giving up the hope of hearing anything more from George that night and accepting the isolation. But he could do it, almost happily, comforted by the knowledge he would see George the next day. 

He recentered his weight and let his head sink into his pillow. It smelled old. Not bad, but old. Dream couldn’t stop himself from smiling, sad and gentle. He held his phone to his chest and squeezed. The metal didn’t move but his fingers ached with the force. 

In the back of his mind, Dream realised it was dangerous. This smiling, this thing burrowing itself into his heart. But he couldn’t stop himself. He let himself imagine a world where he knew George fully, recognised every part of him as  _ George.  _ A jigsaw in the shape of a man where Dream knew the place of each part as if it were the back of his hand. It was a different kind of friendship than what Dream had known. He wanted to understand him, to uncover all the secrets he was holding so close to his chest. It felt as if knowing George was inevitable. And he wanted George to do the same to him, to see all of him and like it. To prove he could be known in full and still seen as himself, still Dream. Still human.

Dream didn’t feel himself falling asleep but he didn’t wake up until 3 in the afternoon, his phone still lying over his heart.

Sapnap collected him before George, so he had time to explain his _ misleading statement _ before George got in the truck clueless at half four in the afternoon, three hours before the match started.

George understood what had happened once they arrived at the empty pitch. Dream was thankful he had briefed Sapnap before their arrival, because without Sapnap there he was convinced he would have ended up in a morgue. 

Once George had accepted and made peace with the situation, that is to say 95 minutes and multiple very stern telling offs later, Dream and Sapnap decided the only natural thing to do was warm up an hour early. 

With a ball from Sapnap’s truck, they started to pass gently to each other. George only managed to claim he couldn’t play for 10 minutes before Dream and Sapnap convinced him to join in.

Dream had been sure George was exaggerating his incompatibility with the sport. Fundamentally, it was just kicking a ball. But Dream was very wrong. Dream tried to tip him the ball, a gentle touch, but somehow George still fumbled it. He managed to stand on the ball three times before kicking it past Sapnap. 

They spend half an hour trying to explain the basics of soccer to an increasingly annoyed George, who thanked God when the real team started to trickle in. It meant he was released from the seventh circle of hell - soccer drills

Dream went through the motions of his pre-match routine; the warm-up and laughter and tieing of boots. The coach, their chemistry teacher, arrived ten minutes before the match started. Dream gave a particularly rousing speech and then suddenly they were in the tunnel, waiting for the referee to call them onto the field.

Normally, the time in the tunnel made any other time spent on the field feel tiny, irrelevant. It was a place that didn’t obey the laws of time. Four seconds in the tunnel made a month on the field feel like maybe ten minutes.

That day, Dream had spent three hours on the field before the match. Normally, the tunnel would have made that feel like a millisecond. A blip. 

But, Dream could recall the hours spent easily. He barely had to think before George yelling at him and Sapnap rushed to mind. George trying to score a goal from the penalty line, with no goalie, and somehow hitting the _ crossbar _ . George’s sigh of relief when he saw one of the players approaching to relieve him of his place in the drill. It was all cased in amber in Dream’s brain. It was proof that he had prepared for this match. There was a time before it and there would be a time after.

Standing on the tunnel, waiting to be called out to play the first match of the year, Dream was calm.

Before he could think too deeply, Sapnap turned to Dream. His eyes were almost pleading. He grabbed ream by the shoulders and tried to look deep into his soul.

“Promise me that you won't start any fights this time.” Dream couldn’t stop the laugh that escaped him. He rolled his eyes good-naturedly. He never started fights, but he replied anyway to put Sapnap at ease.

“I promise I won’t start any fights.” Sapnap breathed a sigh of relief, ever the drama queen. 

“Thank you.” Sapnap turned to head to the team huddle, everyone waiting for Dream’s final good luck. Before Sapnap could walk away Dream grinned, lopsided and hyper. 

“I will finish them though.”

Dream was walking out before Sapnap could protest, the team behind him. Dream didn’t want to prolong their wait any longer. They knew what he was going to say, and he knew they didn't need to hear it. The atmosphere changed the second the crowd could see them

Oakland had walked out stiff and straight-backed. Proper as always. Beside them, Dream and his team’s causal jogs and crowd-pleasing waves were even more charming. Dream allowed himself a moment to revel in the cheers before locking his eyes on the ball.

Once he adjusted to the floodlights, Dream’s eyes raked over the crowds until they locked on George, leaning on the low fence. He shot him his lopsided grin and waved. He was charm personified. The crowd’s heads swivelled in search of the recipient, but no one looked at George smiling as he rolled his eyes.

Once the whistle was blown, the team came alive. The state champions ran circles around Oakwood. Dream was two-thirds of the way to his aspired hat trick by half time, with the total score at 4 - nil. Their team worked seamlessly together, everyone exactly where they needed to be. It was like watching a well-oiled machine, or embroidery at super speed.

Dream and Sapnap were shining through, their natural chemistry turned to telepathy on the soccer field. It was as if the ball was a piece of metal and they were the magnets. It stuck to them, gravitated to their feet. 

By the second half, Oakwood were angry. It showed in their game. They started to slip up, losing easy balls. Their footwork got sloppy. But they also got more aggressive. Somehow, the referee was turning a blind eye to every  _ misplaced  _ kick and  _ accidental _ shove in the back. But, Dream had trained everyone for this. They stayed calm, took their deep deep breaths and played fair.

Oakwood did not take the same approach. The more time they spent on the field, the rougher they played. Dream had cycled through six of the ten substitutes by the time the second half rolled around. He was convinced the referee had optional cataracts.

With twenty minutes left, Dream’s team were 3 goals up - the only three goals of the match. But, Dream was still a goal away from his hat trick, and he was getting tired. 

The rest of the team was playing defence, just like Dream had told them to do during training. He had said it would be stupid to go for glory in this situation, three goals up and approaching the end of the match. It would be plain dumb.

Dream knew all this, thought about it even. He knew it was  _ right, _ but he saw an Oakland striker, who he was not supposed to be marking, running up the field. He didn’t have the ball, it was on the opposite end of the pitch, but Dream could see it in his mind’s eye. Two easy, unlikely passes and it would be at the striker’s open feet. 

There were other boys closer to him, it would’ve made more sense for them to run to mark him. It would have been easy. But Dream couldn’t stop thinking of the one goal he needed for a hat trick.

Aching feet and heaving lungs Dream ran towards him. The striker saw him coming from a mile off. 

His leg connected with Dream’s, and suddenly Dream was on the floor clutching his shin. 

At first, there was no feeling. Then, just as suddenly as the air had left Dream’s lungs when he hit the floor, there was intense pain. 

Dream looked down at his leg, curled up on the floor. He couldn’t hear the referee’s whistle blowing. But he could see the blood.

Before he could make a scene, he was pushing himself up unto his feet. The Oakwood striker didn’t offer him a hand up.

Dream was sent off to the sidelines, limping with an arm around Sapnap’s shoulder. Someone’s mother was a nurse. She assured him it was just a surface wound. Dream saw his parents in the stand, he hadn’t noticed them before. He would’ve waved weakly, or shot them a thumbs up, but he couldn’t focus on them. His mind was racing through anger and pain and anger again.

From the bench, Dream nodded to Sapnap to take the penalty. It wasn’t a question.

He had to sit the final fifteen minutes out, screaming from the bench. The only benefit was George’s spot in the crowd behind him was right behind the bench. He was sitting with his friends, making sarcastic comments about Oakwood. It was nice to listen to, distracting.

With Oakwood playing a man down, the team won 4 - 0. 

After the obligatory post-win speech, Dream enjoyed a long warm shower in the changing rooms. It was a scarce rarity for him, only his third long shower in the changing block in four years.

After, Dream was alone in the dressing room, all aching muscles and sore lungs. He was sitting on the bench, legs shaking with the exhaustion of it all. His hair was wet and his shoulders were slumped. There was a low humming echoing off the concrete walls. Dream barely noticed it. He had screwed his eyes tightly shut and had his head hanging between his shoulders. He was waiting there until it was firmly ten minutes since anyone had left, just like he always did. And he was humming, which he did not always do.

It was coming from the base of his throat. The tune of ‘Call Me Maybe’ was raspy, hidden under his breath. But it was there, soft and delicate. The rise and fall, the soft lilts. It made the cold of air of the changing room warmer, familiar. He didn’t think about it, didn’t imagine he would be heard. He just sat there, hair dripping and voice humming. It was tender and charged, too patient. 

_ Hey, I just met you, _

_ And this is crazy, _

“Well done, you. You did great” George’s voice came from the doorway, distant and delicate. It shattered Dream’s bubble of gentle calm.

Dream’s brain froze. It caught him off guard, disarmed him. The softness of George’s tone. Too genuine. Before he could unfreeze his mind to think about it, George was talking again.

“Except when you fell. That was embarrassing.” 

Dream lifted his head from the wall and cracked open his eyes. George was smiling softly at him. It made Dream feel as if he was bending back his ribs one by one to get a closer look at his panting heart. He couldn’t quite bring himself to stand. 

“Brave words Mr Speed Chess.” This was easy, this was Dream and George. Sharp banter and too intense bickering. It was easier than the alternative, the thing Dream wanted once the sun went down. The symbiotic vulnerability. 

Dream realised just how tired he really was, listening to his own fragile voice. He was sure George had to have noticed it too. He was sure his smile was too soft, his words too tender to be teasing.

He didn’t know what it was, this new wall he was building. This refusal to let George see him vulnerable. Dream tried to rationalise, call to mind the years of hatred and distrust. It didn’t work, he was met with the hours he and George had spent laughing, the simple rhythm they had so quickly fallen into. George’s quiet jokes, Dream’s beaming grin. There was no reason for this guard Dream was invoking. Yet still, he couldn’t stop it. The hand always hovering over his mouth, ready to slap it closed. 

Sapnap was coming in behind George before Dream could leave himself exposed.

“I swear to God, whenever I see you two together it’s like I get to watch a chihuahua provoke a wolfhound." Sapnap was next to George in the doorway, grinning. Dream smiled back, heaving himself up off the bench. Dream wasn’t sure if he was meant to be the chihuahua or wolfhound.

“Fuck off, Sapnap.” He muttered it at the same time as George, shouldering his way past them towards Sapnap’s truck.

“You two are the closest thing I have to a real-life soap opera!” Sapnap was calling out as he followed behind. Despite his best efforts, Dream smiled.

Once the three of them were in the truck, they could really talk. Sapnap and Dream were trying to convince George to come to a party at one of the player’s houses in place of their normal bickering. It was only right to celebrate the win, but George was insisting he couldn’t go. 

Dream and Sapnap had matching  _ that’s bullshit  _ looks on their faces,

Through a mix of begging and empty threats, they managed to get George to agree to come inside, just to congratulate the team. 

He stuck to his word, entering, finding the team all together in the front room and saying a single ‘Great Game’. Then, he turned on his heel and made his way to the front door with his head down. Sapnap and Dream rushed after him.

By the time they caught up, his hand was on the doorknob. But, before he pulled it, he was turning his head to the space on his left. Dream and Sapnap were still standing in the doorway to his right.

“Bad?” Bad’s face lit up as he abandoned his conversation to turn towards George.

“George!” He ran to hug a laughing George.

“Since when were you the partying type?”

  
  
“Since when were you?”

Dream and Sapnap couldn’t believe they had forgotten to tell him Bad would be there.

Twenty minutes in, George was on his fifth shot. Dream and Sapnap looked like Christmas had come early. Bad looked like a concerned father spotting his child in the boxing ring with Muhammad Ali.

“George, oh my God! What are you doing?” George was drinking straight from the vodka bottle while Sapnap and George watched. 

George kept drinking from the bottle until Bad took it off him.

“It’s been a boring week. I'm about to fix that.” Dream had never seen George like this.

George’s grin was devilish, the kind that would have made Dream’s heart flutter and stomach drop if he was a girl. But he was not a girl. And so he thought nothing of George’s gleaming teeth and impish eyes. Nothing.

One thing Dream realised, an hour into the party, was that George was just as clumsy with his mouth when he was drunk as his limbs when he was sober.

Dream was standing in one of the doorways to the kitchen, talking to a girl. She was nice. She liked swimming and pc gaming, not worlds away from Dream. He figured they could be friends. She left to dance with her friends and Dream left to get himself another drink. George was standing next to the spirits.

“She’s not good for you. She was a dick to my friends last year. Hell, even I would be better for you and you hate me”

He hated the way George made his breath stop with stupid comments like that. Dream gritted his teeth.

“Don’t hate you anymore, Georgie.” His shoulders were stiffer than he wanted them to be.

George grinned back at him and drawled.

“For now, Dreamer.”

That fucking grin, sprawling between his aristocratic cheekbones. And that  _ fucking _ nickname. He hated the way it made his stomach flip, acrobatic routines in the pit of his stomach.  _ Dreamer, Dreamer, Dreamer _ . A mantra.

“Are you drunk, George?”

George opened his mouth, ready to deny it, but the cogs of his brain snapped his mouth closed before he could get the words out.

“You know what? Nevermind, you’ll know I’m lying to you anyway.”

Dream didn’t know what it was, the resignation in George’s voice, the gentle familiarity. It made him mad. He made it make him mad, because the alternative was wobbly knees and blushing cheeks. And George didn't have the power to do that to him.

George grabbed his arm, slender fingers gripping strong.

“Come on, let’s dance.” He started to pull him towards the front room, where the speakers were.

“Wait, George, wait,” Dream pulled George back to him gently. He was still clinging to his arm. Dream shrugged him off as softly as he could. His touch felt like hot coals, the way it made Dream’s skin burn. He couldn’t handle it. 

“Why?” Dream didn’t like the disappointment painted all over George, stitched on his face and laced through his muscles. He couldn’t hide his emotions the way he normally did. Not here, not drunk and tired looking as if he wanted to beg Dream to dance. Dream had to explain.

“I  _ can’t _ dance.” George’s face didn’t change.

“Yeah, why?” He was looking up at him expectantly, which had not been the plan.

“What do you- I’m bad at it. I can’t dance.” Dream gestured to his long legs and stretched arms. George’s face lit up, a lightbulb moment. Dream realised, George had thought he couldn’t dance because of his injured shin. He cursed himself internally for not being more dramatic.

“You don’t have to be good at something to do it, Dream. Dancing at parties is fun. It’s like exercise, but for your brain.” George pointed to his two temples with both hands, grinning. Not the plan.

“It’s very literally exercise for your body.” Dream didn’t realise there was a smile on his face. 

“Fine, it’s exercise for your soul. Now, come on. Dance with me.” 

Dream managed to down a shot while he was dragged out by George, it felt like fire down his raw throat. Before he could say no, George was pulling him to the speakers. Dream didn’t dance, he had never known how to. His limbs were too jerky, arms too awkward. And bad dancing didn’t fit the  _ Dream image _ , not cool and nonchalant enough.

But George was looking up at him with a messy grin and the speakers were thumping and the bodies around him were thrumming. He tried to justify it to himself, the lights were low, no one would see him, but Dream couldn’t have said no in a million years. Not to George, not there, not then.

It was easy to tell the song was on its outro as Dream and George stumbled in. Dream laughed easily at his accidental win.

“Oh no! There goes that idea. Come on, let’s find Sapnap and Bad.” He went to tug George out, but George tugged him back. It caught Dream off balance, making him stumble after George to keep from falling.

George rolled his eyes, slinking his way to the boy with the aux cord and dragging Dream with him.

“Hey, Toby, what’s up?” George talked to the boy, who he was apparently friendly with. Dream knew he went to their school, but he didn’t know the boy. If George hadn’t just said his name, he would’ve had no idea. He stood awkwardly behind George, unsure whether or not he should introduce himself. He was too caught up in the unfamiliar awkwardness to listen to what they were saying. Before he knew it, George was smiling Toby a thanks and dragging him back into the crowd.

“What was that about?” Dream had to bend down to whis[er into George’s ear. George didn’t reply. He didn’t need to. 

The iconic opening of Carly Rae Jepsen's ‘Call Me Maybe’ started to play. Dream couldn’t stop the barking laugh he let out. George smiled so widely Dream was sure his cheeks would rip open.

Dream wasn’t sure if it was the shots, or the crowds or the boy standing open and soft before him, but he felt the hardened rock around his muscles and tendons melt away. He couldn’t dance, but he could sway next to George while Carly Rae Jepsen sang one of her masterpieces.

George was his only salvation from the heaving, living heat of the crowd. His flushed face and ruined hair were all Dream could see. He tried his casual swaying, but George’s energy called for more. 

Dream couldn’t help but sing along.

_ I threw a wish in a well, _

_ I looked at you as it fell. _

George was not a great dancer, really he just flailed and hopped. He yelled to the beat and flung his arms about him. Dream had to apologise on his behalf to a girl he had accidentally whacked. She didn’t acknowledge it.

Dream realised, no one there cared. Everyone just wanted to dance. Dream looked to George, laughing and jumping to the mirage of singing violins. It was all so intense, Dream couldn’t resist it. 

His thudding, thumping body didn’t quite match George’s plasmic flow. His muses thrashed with the musical pulses, throat raw from the singing. No matter how loud he was, everyone  around him was louder. 

It felt like indulgence, sweeping slowly over his skin and through his veins. He had to choose to let himself enjoy it.

His dancing was horrible, but George loved it. Dream felt like it was a newfound candour, this allowance. He was bad, he was having fun. There was no contradiction. He could do both.

_ Where you think you’re going, baby? _

Dream’s thudding stomps didn’t match George’s rough edged-grace, but he was there. And he was dancing. It felt like a win. It felt human, more human than Dream had felt in days. In those three minutes, he wasn’t  _ the  _ Dream. He was just another person.

He felt like one cell in the body of a giant, doing the same as everyone around him, but for the first time he liked it. He was doing the same as George, who was jumping offbeat.

_ But here’s my number, so call me maybe? _

Dream’s panting chest felt like it was holding corporal freedom inside it. He thought his heart was about to beat it’s way out of his cell wall chest and soar away.

_ Before you came into my life, I missed you so bad. _

_ I missed you so, so bad. _

Dream couldn’t believe he had ever thought George was restrained and standoffish. 

The George Dream had thought he had known for years, detached and reserved, quiet and reclusive; Dream watched in his mind as he died and was replaced with this new man. This new George had an unrelenting mind and thrashing heart. It fit perfectly with Dream’s aching body and delicate soul. There, sweating next to George as he sang his throat raw, Dream was sure George had to be his missing part. His final puzzle piece. If there was an empty cave in Dream he would stretch and chip away at it until it was the perfect size for George to settle in.

As the song ended, Dream tried to sort out his jumbled thoughts. His brain felt like a smoothie. Before he could take an internal inventory, Sapnap was beside him. It was easy to guide a panting Dream and George away from the dance floor and down a quiet hall, muttering about  _ ‘totally unlike you, both of you’. _

Dream couldn’t process the moving. He shut his eyes to keep it out, only opening his eyes for sporadic flashes of the house. He knew they were going down a hall together, but it all blended into one.

Sapnap got more and more excited the closer they got to the end of the hall. When he finally opened the last door, he was practically hopping.

Dream’s muddied brain recognised it as some kind of game’s room, like the basement in Sapnap’s old house. There was an easily ignored pool table, and on the pool table was an open bottle.

George got to the bottle first. He offered it to Dream and Sapnap before drinking from it. He coughed and spluttered as it went down.

“Gin.” His grimace was enough to deter them all.

Sapnap found a VR headset, the kind none of them had at home. They had to arm wrestle for it. Sapnap won, through methods involving plain cheating if you asked Dream. He had kicked Dream’s blooded shin  _ ‘accidentally _ ’ mid-wrestle and refused a rematch. George hadn’t wanted to get involved. 

Sapnap got to play on the VR first.

George was a nice drunk to be around. He wasn’t loud or annoying or excitable. He was just George, but less guarded. He thought out loud about the universe and the human condition and why goldfish were called goldfish when they were orange. Dream sat cross-legged in front of him while he spoke, slow and heavy. His brain felt cloudy, but in a nice way. A buffer between Dream and George, and everything else.

George liked to do things wrong. The more he talked about random things, the clearer it became. He ate pasta at breakfast time. He sat on chairs backwards and sideways and even upside down, laying his back on the seat and letting the blood rush to his head. He used his conditioner before his shampoo. 

Dream tried to tell him, tried to enlighten him that he was living wrong.

“Well, I’m doing perfectly fine.”

Dream didn’t know how George managed to slip this gentle tenderness into everything he did. He swapped from sitting cross-legged to lying down, sprawling like a starfish. Dream did the same. He could feel their fingers brushing against each other. 

Sapnap was immersed in his own digital world, but Dream was sure they were feeling the same thing, total separation from reality It was as if he and George had escaped time. They just lay there on the dirty carpet together, fingertips barely brushing. 

“Ow!” The serenity didn’t last long. Sapnap had walked into a wall.

George laughed aloud. “That's going to hurt in the morning.”

Sapnap held up his middle finger, in the wrong direction. The headset was still on.

“It hurts now, idiot.” Dream grinned between them. He wasn’t used to their friendship.

“Well, at least you did your best!” Dream tried to give his positive input from his position on the floor. Sapnap shuddered.

“God, I hope not.” He went into the game again.

Dream turned his body back to the ceiling, but it wasn’t the same. The bubble was popped and he couldn’t stitch it back together. 

Instead, he sat up to face George again so they could talk. 

Ten minutes later, Sapnap was still alive and thriving in the game, while Dream and George were falling back into the natural rhythm of their conversations. 

“Why did you think I hated you?” George’s voice was a rock skimmed on the pond of quiet. Dream was laying back on the couch, eyes again locked on the ceiling. It made it easier, not having to look at George on the other end of the couch. Their feet were tangled together. George was being gentle with Dream’s recovering shin. Dream didn’t think about it before replying.   


  
“Didn’t you?” He didn’t see the gentle shake of George’s head.

“No. If anything, you hated me.” His voice bounced from the ceiling to Dream’s ears. Dream sat up to face him, ceiling tainted.

“No I didn’t. No, I don’t.” It was Dream’s turn now to shake his head. He wanted to lean forward and tell George a hundred times. He didn’t, he doesn’t.

  
  
“Okay, Dream.” George hadn’t sat up, still staring at the white ceiling.   
  


Neither of them said anything for a minute. Dream looked at George, George looked up. Dream couldn’t handle the quiet, the noncommitment in George’s voice. He needed to fix it. He spoke into the silence.

“You just, you stopped talking to me. Like, overnight. So, I just thought you hated me.” Dream couldn’t keep looking at him. He tilted his head back, closed his eyes. He wished he hadn’t had that vodka. It was shoving cotton in his mouth and down his throat. There was morphine in his lips, he couldn’t get his words out.

“Yeah. I was anxious. I wasn’t talking to anyone.” George’s gaze was deadset, not on Dream.

  
  
“Well, you ignored me. I thought you hated me.” Dream tried to justify himself to George, to rationalise his behaviour at nine years old. George just hummed.

“So all of that, the years of dirty looks and rolling eyes, it was because I hurt your feelings by being too quiet?” George finally looked at him. Dream couldn’t believe he had ever wanted him to. His eyes were cold stone.

“Don’t say it like that.” Dream wanted to look away, but he couldn’t. His voice sounded small. Sapnap still had the headset on, he couldn’t hear them. He wasn’t coming to save him.

“Well, how would you say it, Dream?” George was still staring at him. Dream wanted to sew his eyes shut.

“I-” He looked away, but found himself looking back in George’s eyes before speaking again. “You weren’t just  _ quiet _ . You ignored me.” It was all too quiet.

“You were too busy for me Dream. I wanted to be your friend, for years. Don’t try and spin this as if I dropped you. You couldn’t deal with me being quiet, with me going through a hard time. You needed my attention, you wanted it, 24/7. You were selfish.”

  
  
Dream couldn’t speak. He felt like someone was sucking the air slowly from his lungs and then the last traces of oxygen from his blood. George stood up and it was the final kick.

Sapnap must have sensed the movement, because just then he took off the headset.

“I think I saw some of my friends in another room. I’m going to go and say hi.”

“Hey, we’re your friends.” Dream had no idea how Sapnap knew to make his voice so soft at that moment. He had always had a sixth sense for those things.

“Yeah.” Dream managed to choke the word out.

“Come on Dream. Sometimes I think if you saw me bleeding out on your kitchen floor, you’d act like you hadn’t seen me.” George smiled tightly to Sapnap and left.

Dream let him go. He hated the tightness in his chest, the bitter taste in his mouth. He made himself feel angry in a way he knew he didn’t deserve to be. For the first time in his life, he knew George was right about what had happened. A lot of it had been his fault.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> psa 2 - i have never read the great gadsby but I have read about the green light thing which I find quite nice :)
> 
> thank you for reading please please please comment. id love to hear about your pets again that was so cute.  
> also this took so long because there's actually a whole other half that was meant to be included but that would've made it 10k and I'm not batshit

**Author's Note:**

> please comment !!
> 
> my first ever rpf work. always thought it was a bit odd until reading the infamous heat waves then I knew I had to do something for georgenotfound
> 
> hmu on tumblr if you want aoifeanamadan :))


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